Mental Health Authority Trains Journalists …On New Mental Health Act

From Alfred Adams
THE Ghana Health Service, in collaboration with the Mental Health Authority, has held a day's workshop to train newsmen and women on the new Mental Health Act (846).  The workshop, which was attended by journalists drawn from both the print and electronic media, was to hone their knowledge and equip them with the tools to report effectively on mental issues, without infringing on the right of persons considered as metal patients.

The Mental Health Act has been enacted to improve Mental Health Care in Ghana. The act sets out to re-focus the way mental health services are provided – a shift from impatient or institutional care to a more community-based approach. Taking journalists through the Act, the Regional Health Mental Coordinator, Mr. Charles Kwame Vigbedor, observed that if they (journalists) are well informed on mental health, they could well inform and shape society's perception about mental patients.

The focus of the workshop was therefore to court the help of the media in shaping the perception society has about mental health.  Touching on forms of mental diseases, the Regional Health Coordinator mentioned that there were different forms of mental illness. He mentioned them as moderate and severe mental illness.

The severe form is where, according to the Mental Coordinator,  the illness affects the occupational function of the individual. Charles Vigbedor disclosed to the journalists that there were about 300 severe cases of mental patients in the Western Region.

 Touching on the role of the media, he reminded them that every mental patient, either on the street or confined, had rights, just as every citizen. According to him, the new Act frowned on society discriminating against mental patients and as well, referring to them as 'crazy'.  The mental patients, he noted, had the right to visit every facility and must be treated equally as every patient.